I am really not an Avril Lavigne fan. I don't mind her music, but she is not someone I would get a whole cd of. There is one song that I keep hearing on the radio but I have not actually heard the lyrics until today. The song is called "Nobody's Home" and that song literally hit home for me in more than one way.

I like to divide my life so far in three sections:

1. Before puberty, a normal childhood with the usual bumps but nothing significant.
2. After puberty around highschool things started happening in my personal and school life which caused me major depression and subsequently, a suicide attempt that my family didn't know about until recently (over 10 years later).
3. The life I am living now. No more suicidal thoughts because I am the happiest I have ever been with the love of my life guiding me and keeping me sane. I also have learned to love myself and that is the most important thing.

So listening to that Avril song brought me back to part 2 of my life. The girl of that time is no longer a huge part of me even though she is still here. She is the sad girl who doesn't belong...anywhere. The girl who lived in her bedroom and cried in her pillow every night for hours. The girl who put on a brave face for her family and friends to the point where no one suspected. Her parents would have known something was going on but there was some major drama with her little brother that required her parents' full attention at that time.

Some kids at school had never accepted her as one of them even though her class was only 16 kids strong. You would think a small school such as that wouldn't have "outcasts" but it did have an outcast and she was it. She tried fitting in but to no avail. She was able to cling to about 3 kids in the school, most of who were younger than her, but they weren't true friends. There was a lot of backstabbing in that small group of friends. So at the end of the day she belonged no where. Her school not accepting of her, her family preoccupied with other things, so she felt alone and wondered why no one liked her.

One night after many nights of planning and researching, she opened what was a newly purchased pack of diet pills and swallowed every one. She was scared but mostly she was relieved that it was all going to be over and a new start in another world would begin. She believed in angels and in God and she knew she would be okay after tonight because she knew she was going where they all loved her.

Hours passed and nothing happened. She fell asleep out of boredom of waiting and woke up in the morning with a pounding headache and feeling nauseated. She had what felt like the flu all day and she told her parents that she must have come down with something. She couldn't figure out why her plan hadn't worked. She took the now empty packet of diet pills out of the trash and saw that they had expired exactly one year to the day that she took them!! What is so odd is that she JUST bought them from a store a week before. Wow! She knew it wasn't her time.

Years later I look back on that time and I know I wasn't meant to go then. I have things to do in this world before God will decide to bring me home. I met the love of my life, I have learned to look within myself and I have fallen in love with the spirit within. I still have my days when I struggle, but the love I have for myself is strong and no one can ever take that away from me.

I hardly ever think about that lost little girl because it isn't healthy to dwell, but every now and then something sparks my memory and I remember her. I shed tears for her when I can recall the feelings of hopelessness and of being alone. That only serves to remind me of how far I've come and even when I am having a bad day I know it is nothing as bad as it used to be. I will never go back there. I can't.

Nobody's Home: Avril Lavigne

I couldn't tell you why she felt that way,
She felt it everyday.
And I couldn't help her,
I just watched her make the same mistakes again.

What's wrong, what's wrong now?
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Open your eyes and look outside, find a reasons why.
You've been rejected, and now you can't find what you left behind.
Be strong, be strong now.
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Her feelings she hides.
Her dreams she can't find.
She's losing her mind.
She's fallen behind.
She can't find her place.
She's losing her faith.
She's fallen from grace.
She's all over the place.
Yeah,oh

She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

We have guests over for dinner and to watch basketball on tv tonight but I am just so tired. Not sleepy as much as just tired.

One of our friends have been here for an hour or so and I love his company. I am just not feeling the hostess role right now. So I have snuck away for a minute to surf the web until I feel a little more refreshed.

I might need to get a cup of coffee or something to perk me up. I don't want to be rude and I really do enjoy having company over but I can't seem to get over this hump right now.

This has been the first week in the whole month that I haven't missed a day of work. The first week we had the 3rd off to observe New Years (since New Years fell on a Saturday), the second week I missed Monday for dental reasons, the third week I had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day. And this isn't including the days we were snowed into our homes and couldn't come to work.

You would think my attendance is suffering greatly but it isn't. I used vacation, personal, holiday and sick days for all of those days and none of those are used against you in our company. If I was out of sick, personal and vacation days and I took off on a non-holiday, then that would be where the black marks start to fill in my attendance calendar.

I just need to watch out how I spend my "legal" days because I need to take two weeks off this Spring for our impending move to New Jersey. While my husband is in NJ looking for our new home, I will be here getting our current residence prepared (sorting through our crap to get rid of junk, starting to pack boxes with things we want to keep but things we don't use or need between now and moving day, ect).

I almost called in "sick" this morning because I am just not feeling up to work today, but I did the mature thing and decided to come in instead of wasting yet another valuable sick day. Plus, it is Friday!!! :D

For those of you curious, my Ebay "career" is still going. I've gotten a few auctions with no bids that have ended so I just need to sort through my inventory and decide what I will do with them all. I also need to go shopping for more clothes. I haven't been able to do my weekly shopping this week and that has made my Ebay sort of slow down to a trot, but that is okay, I will be up and running again soon I hope.

I am totally and completely immersed in plans to move. I haven't been able to focus on work today because I've been looking up quotes, prices, and options to help make our move as smooth and cheap as humanly possible. I am happy to report, my obsession that started 6 months ago and went away before the holidays, has come back with full force this morning. Lucky for me I was able to go from an estimate of $3,500-$4,000 to move to $1,800! And it looks as though I might be able to deduct another few hundred dollars from that total with the cost-cutting ideas that we've come up with! We are shooting for a total price of $1,200-1,400 but if I wanted to be conservative about it, I would say we'll land on the $1,600 figure when all is said and done.

What does all of this money go for? Lemme tell you!

A you pack, we move type of moving truck (company is called ABF)

An order of brand new shipping boxes from an online company

And since we are driving our own car, this total price ALSO includes gas, tolls, one night at a hotel, and getting our pets vaccinated and prepared for the journey.

$1,200-1,800 for all of this is a far cry from the $3500-4000 figure we started with! Now let's hope nothing falls through such as finding a place to live and getting that job that was promised to my husband.

You are a tv star worth $60 million but your real dream is to become a movie star. Is that greed?

You are a sports star worth millions but you are trying to not only get more multi-million dollar commercial deals but you are also vying to make a music album that hopefully gets you on the Top 40 Billboard Music list. Is that greed?

You are a movie and tv star with Oscars and Emmies under your belt, but you have always wanted to win a Grammy so you start making music albums. Is that greed?

You are a CEO that pulls in $2 million a year so you quit and get a job as another company's CEO that gives you an income of $5 million a year. Is that greed?

You are a business owner of a popular chain of stores and you make $1 million a year but you haven't reported your taxes in over 5 years. Is that greed?

I swear, if I can make even $1 million doing anything legal, you won't ever have to worry about me being greedy by trying to make even more. But then again, $1 million goes fast especially after taxes are taken out, so I might need to make a little more just so that I can afford that mansion on the hill, the Bentley I just bought, and the trip around the world I have always wanted to take

Off topic, but:

Embarrassing Moment #3000: Someone showing me a picture and me thinking they are giving it to me so I say "Oh! I will hang this up here!" (pointing to my cubicle walls). They quickly take the picture back from my hands and proceed to tell me that they will hang it in THEIR cube. *ooops*

The perfect person: Someone who reads every single self-help book on the market and acutally applies them to their lives. This person would be in great physical shape, mentally healthy, they would become executives in huge corporations, they would be wealthy, and they would be able to use hynosis everytime a bad habit started like smoking, overeating, ect. Oh and they would be GREAT in bed.

Famous Last Words:

"I'm feeling confident!"
"Hmmmm, this tastes interesting"
"Oh don't worry, I've done this before."
"It does work! I read it in a self-help book once!"

I love making my own mix tapes thanks to peer to peer file sharing but now I've found another diamond-in-the-rough that I can get from file sharing...audio books!!! Almost any book you can think of has been made into an audio book for the sight impaired or for anyone who wants to get their reading done via long car trips or at work.

I absolutely love reading and I can't seem to get enough of it. So on any given day I am listening to an audio book at work and then going home and reading another book. I have a book wish list the size of my arm that I can now take care of thanks to file sharing!

Viva La Peer to Peer!!!

Oh and I am about to update my "Book I Am Reading" link to part II of His Dark Materials.

When I was younger I used to see movies where only the important jobs required picture badges. Like a scientist working for the CDC, an emergency room doctor, an FBI agent. So of course, I aspired to one day be in a job which required a picture id batch that I would wear proudly on my lapel.

Well, I am in a job that requires a photo id badge and it ain't a glamourous job. Data entry and answering phones was not on my short list of dream jobs growing up.

Today I feel like cattle. The badge is a branding of sorts. We are corraled into a depressing space and made to work for the common good in a grey box we call cubicles. We have scheduled feeding times (breaks and lunch) posted on the outerwall of our boxes so that the Powers That Be can know where we are at any given moment. If we are to go the the bathroom and it takes longer than 5 minutes, our bosses are notified and that piece of useless information is shoved in our permanent records.

Hot chocolate for breakfast? At least it isn't loaded with caffeine like coffee.

Pizza for breakfast? Bacon, toast with butter, sausage, and fried eggs is better?

So why are people so hung up over what other people eat for breakfast? It seems to be okay to have breakfast foods for dinner, but God forbid someone eats dinner foods for breakfast. We live in a very odd culture.

If you won $1 million on national tv, wouldn't you be sure to pay your taxes? It seems the first Survivor winner, Richard Hatch, has failed to report his winnings to the IRS and they have charged him with that.

Did he not think that IRS employees watch tv and read the papers? Being plastered all over the media for winning a million dollars would kinda put you on the IRS map I would think.

The pic above are of the soaps I made this weekend! I had a massage soap mold so I made a bunch of massage soaps. The dark one is made with tea...yes, black tea. Just open a tea-bag and pour into the melted soap. The hot pink ones are vanilla scented and some are lavender scented. The clear one is vanilla scented. Fun to make but now I need to buy more soap base. *lol*

Annnnnd, it is 10pm and I am not in bed yet due to surfing the web and posting more things on ebay. It's going to be a looooong day tomorrow.

I started the weekend lazy. I meant to get some things done yesterday, but all I did was read (if you want to know what I am currently reading click link on the upper right corner named "Book I Am Reading"), sleep, surf the net, and watch tv. It was relaxing though. Dh and I unplugged every home phone and turned off every cell phone all day long.

Later on I drove to the PO to check my mailbox (I'm waiting for two more ebay payments for auctions that people won), then I went to a hobby store and bought some clear soap so that I can make some more massage soaps for us and maybe for some friends.

This morning I actually washed the dishes, took inventory and washed my last load of used clothes I bought for selling on ebay, and I vaccumed the living room which I sort of let go the past few weeks. *EEEK*

I feel like I have accomplished things and that makes me feel good.

Dh is going to the city tonight for a poker tournament with some friends. There is a chance to win $500 for 1st place so I hope he wins!! We could REALLY use that money for our moving account.

I wanted to sort, take pics, and post the auctions for the clothing I just washed this morning, but I have a feeling that won't happen until tomorrow. But that's okay. At least I got the process started!

The workplace meeting we had was to tell us that there will be several new positions opening up that the management encourages us all to apply for. That is good news for us, but the bad news is that all of our team leaders will now have to apply and interview for their own positions because all of their spots are now open for grabs with this new re-organization. I am lucky because I was never able to climb the business ladder high enough to become a team leader simply because I "don't have the experience".

I am not sure how to even GET that experience since my company won't supply me with the necessary tools to get them. So as far as they are concerned, unless I get that experience elsewhere, I will NEVER be able to advance much past where I am presently.

If you are keeping up with this, you can jot this down as ANOTHER reason I have GOT to get my small-business off the ground.

It was a total coincidence but very very appropriate for the times: I went to the half price bookstore and got several books on clearance, one of them is a Dilbert book about management, office politics, ect. It is not a Dilbert comic book, it is an actual book written by the Dilbert author about the crap that goes around in offices. AND I even rented from Blockbuster the whole season two of The Office, that hilarious comedy made in England and produced by the BBC. I did all of this a day or two before this workplace meeting but it seemed fitting to talk about it today.

My jaw is killing me. Yesterday I had a crown put on the tooth that got a root canal last spring. I've been taking aspirin to help dull the pain and lucky for me it is working. I was tossing and turning all night due to my jaw hurting so much. Right now it hurts because I had it opened for an hour and a half so the dentist could work. The denist assistants told me that when that pain wears off, I will feel pain on the tissue and around the tooth for about 3-5 days. *eeek*

In three weeks I go back for the permanent crown. Right now I only have a temporary one. I can’t wait to be done with it. That is the LAST time I let a cavity go un-fixed for so long. I don't ever want another root canal.

Well my employer is having an all-employee meeting for my department this morning. It is supposedly good news for us all but we'll see. I will add more about the meeting later…

So I had to call in sick to work because I need to get my crown for a back tooth put on. I had a root canal in the spring and I was supposed to get a crown ASAP but I waited until I got more dental insurance at the first of the year. This morning I called in sick so that I could get this thing done and over with.

Since my appt isn't until later, I might go out shopping with the $50 bonus I recieved last night when I got paid for my stay-at-home-data-entry project I do for a market research company!!

I can't decide what I want to buy with it. But give me a minute and I will come up with something. :)

What is my motivation to get my small business off the ground and keep it there?

No more cubicles

No more supervisors

Work my own hours

No more hipocritical supervisors (I can talk all day about this subject)

No more office politics

I can control my own destiny

Just this morning when we had to call in again due to the bad road conditions, one of the supervisors we happened to call made it pretty plain that she didn't believe our reason for staying home. Little did she realize that just because the MAIN roads and highways are pretty clear, the back roads and our cul-de-sac is still covered with ice! If we could get TO the main roads and highways we could get to work, but until someone comes and clears out our cul-de-sac and the neighborhood roads that lead TO the main roads, we are stuck!

This is the kind of shit I can do without. Believe us or not, but don't treat us like liars to our faces without knowing the details. Our company gives us 40 hours a year to use anyway we like at the last minute. Unlike our vacation days we get, we can use those 40 hours without getting prior approval. So if we are sick or if we are snowed in our homes we can call and use those hours without pre-approval and without getting punished. So when someone calls a supervisor to use that time, that supervisor has NO business making judgements on the validity of that person's excuse. We don't need their approval to use those hours.

Couldn't go to work today, couldn't go anywhere today since we were iced in. My area got 1"-2" of ice then it snowed a little so by afternoon there was slippery slush on every road. Now that is all supposed to freeze over tonight and cause worse driving conditions tomorrow. Looks like no work tomorrow either.

That is okay though, I've been working really hard on my ebay thing so I don't mind. I'm still making the money! :)

An icestorm is heading my way and our Mustang is NOT ready. We need to buy lots of sandbags or cat litter or something today before the freezing rain starts. That means leaving work early today.

I feel bad using some personal time from work for weather-related things because it is only the beginning of January and this time needs to last me at least until July. But what can I do?

Ebay is working out good for me so far. Out of 5 auctions, 1 has a bid and 1 has a watcher and there is still 5 days left! I just bought a bunch more clothes to sell that I need to take pics of, separate, and post on ebay. So within the next few days I should be adding about 5 more auctions. I really hope this ebay thing works out for me so that I can start saving money for the move and then once we move I can do it full time as a job!

Now my husband wants to sell some things on Ebay. I hear that it can get addicting where people start selling anything not bolted down. I fear it is starting to happen in my own home. *lol*

Dh and I had celebrated by ourselves at home. After a dinner of stuffed Trout, Mussels, and cheesecake (which I didn't eat any of), we settled in to watch Twilight Zone marathon. Our drinks of choice was Miller Light for dh and 1.5 bottles of Martini & Rossi Prosecco Sparkling wine for moi.

The picture above shows our living room table in the middle of our celebration. :)

I cannot believe I didn't get sick or get a hang-over from all that wine! I am a light-weight thereby, I usually get a buzz after one beer (no kidding) so I do not know how I was able to drink 1.5 bottles of wine that is 10.5% alcohol by volume. I wouldn't recommend that much alcohol to anyone because it isn't safe. I didn't drive and lucky for me, I didn't get sick. Maybe it was that trout I ate before I started drinking...

Quote of the time:
"The fine for falsely pulling the fire alarm in the dorm is $1,000. The fine for setting an actual fire in the dorm is $100. So, I figure if I happen to pull the fire alarm, I'll just set a fire in the hall and save myself $900. It's a great plan. "
Shaina